The folks at Lumi have created an iOS app called Lumitype, and used it as the basis for their new silkscreening process.

Read the Design Taxi piece here, and if the pitch gets your tech/craft juices flowing, you can help them out on their Kickstarter. If the idea irks your Handmade Rules ideology, start a conversation in the comments!

Woodland Hills resident Elise Kane is the artist behind “Octopus,” one of the two winning designs that we printed at our silkscreening workshop last month. We followed up with her with a few questions about her experience.

Where did you first learn the art of printmaking, and intaglio specifically?

I learned intaglio and screenprinting while still a student at UC Davis. My intaglio instructor was Stella Ebner and my screenprinting instructor was Malaquias Montoya, who is known for his art activism in and on behalf of the Chicano community.

What was the octopus print originally created for?

We had been given an assignment in Stella Ebner’s class to create a series that demonstrated the development of a drawing on the metal intaglio plate. In other words, everyone created prints for each of six or seven stages of their etchings. When laid side by side in chronological order, your prints told the story of how that drawing came to fruition.

How did it feel first seeing 100+ votes for your design on the website and then seeing people print it on shirts?

To be honest, in my mind, I think those votes were a fluke. However, in the end, I hope people enjoyed the design.

Have you been wearing your octopus shirt every day?

I didn’t make a shirt for myself because I wanted to use ink colors that weren’t available at the demo. I printed shirts for my parents at the demo, though. My dad has one in blue on a white background to evoke the Dodgers, which is his favorite baseball team. My mom has one in green.

Now that you have the octopus silkscreen as a prize, are you going to print more?

Yes! I’ll be buying inks to print the shirts I didn’t get a chance to make for myself, then one for my brother. Maybe I’ll get around to making some greeting cards too. Thank you to coLAb for the unexpected prize! I’m grateful to have been able to share some work alongside some very talented people. It was a neat show.

Are you a Los Angeles artist who just heard about L.A. Handprints? Totally bummed you missed the opportunity to display your work at our installation at Home Room in April? Don’t fret — our online gallery is still up and running and accepting submissions!

Head on over to our submissions page and send us your artwork. The more works you can contribute, the better! LA Handprints hopes to organize more local art events in the future, so your participation in the online portion of our project could lead to your work hanging up at Home Room someday. (Don’t forget to share this website with other local artists who might be interested in submitting work.)

A special thanks to all the artists who have shared their wonderful prints. We could not have done this without you!

These slightly frightening, but also strangely adorable prints by Karen Fiorito at Buddha Cat Press are meant to express a pig’s inner intelligence. I personally can’t help being reminded of a certain..

But seriously, Ms. Fiorito’s pig dieties are high quality and guilt-free at $70 a print. Great gifts for your judgmental vegetarian friends!

New and improved with detailed information about classes, events and priced art

The widely recognized Self Help Graphics in Boyle Heights just got an online facelift that is a must-see for any novice-to-experienced printmaker interested in workshops, residency or studio space rental. It’s all there, with (cheap!) price points, detailed class descriptions and contact info readily available and, compared to their fairly inert and directionless site before, a million times more professional and user friendly. See for yourself: